BangShift.com Ford FE Big Blocks

This Old Mickey Thompson Cross Ram Intake Manifold For Ford FE Big Blocks May Not Make Power But It Sure Is Cool

There are things that sometimes transcend horsepower. Take this intake manifold for example. Currently sitting for sale on eBay for about $3,600 it is one of the only Mickey Thompson “Power Ram” intakes we have ever seen for an FE Ford big block. This is a cross ram style intake designed to have two four barrel carbs bolted to it. The good news it is that even if it adds a carb to your combo and still costs you 30hp it’ll look cooler than hell all polished up and mounted atop your 390, 427, or 428. But hey, we’re better than guessing on this stuff so we went to the resource library and nabbed our copy of Jay Brown’s “The Great FE Intake Comparo” book which is the most comprehensive guide to Ford FE intake manifolds every created. The book is fascinating and it essentially comprises every intake manifold ever created for the engine family and they are all dyno tested! Looking in Jay’s book we discovered the following.

The intake is one of two crossram style intakes ever offered for the FE engine family
You have to use weird and specific parts to get the distributor to work
You have to install six of the intake bolts inside the actual runners of the intake
It is pretty junky at making power

On the dyno graphs shown in Jay’s book, this sucker does not impress. In comparisons with all manner of other intakes it is certainly a bottom dweller, even on pretty mild 400hp engines. In fact, a decent factory 2×4 intake pretty much buries it along with virtually every other single four barrel available at the time of the book’s writing as well.

All this being said, the thing is awesome and if you are building a mild 390, you can make into the middle 400s with respect to horsepower and plenty of torque. No, it is not a good choice if you are looking to build a race motor for for something you will cruise and show, it would be tough to beat this thing for impressing Ford fans.